Thursday, December 1, 2011

Today saw Edinburgh’s Scottish National Portrait Gallery reopen following a two-and-a-half-year, £17.6m (US$27.4m) refurbishment. Conversion of office and storage areas sees 60% more space available for displays, and the world’s first purpose-built portrait space is redefining what a portrait gallery should contain; amongst the displays are photographs of the Scottish landscape—portraits of the country itself.

First opened in 1889, Sir Robert Rowand Anderson’s red sandstone building was gifted to the nation by John Ritchie Findlay, then-owner of The Scotsman newspaper and, a well-known philanthropist. The original cost of construction between 1885 and 1890 is estimated at over 70,000 pounds sterling. Up until 1954, the building also housed the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland who moved to the National Museum of Scotland buildings on Chambers Street. The society’s original meeting table now sits in the public part of the portrait gallery’s library, stared down on by an array of busts and phrenological artefacts.

Wikinewsie Brian McNeil, with other members of the press, received a guided tour of the gallery last Monday from Deputy Director Nicola Kalinsky. What Kalinsky described as an introduction to the gallery that previously took around 40 minutes, now takes in excess of an hour-and-a-half; with little in the way of questions asked, a more inquisitive tour group could readily take well over two hours to be guided round the seventeen exhibitions currently housed in the gallery.

A substantial amount of the 60% additional exhibition space is readily apparent on the ground floor. On your left as you enter the gallery is the newly-fitted giant glass elevator, and the “Hot Scots” photographic portrait gallery. This exhibit is intended to show well-known Scottish faces, and will change over time as people fall out of favour, and others take their place. A substantial number of the people now being highlighted are current, and recent, cast members from the BBC’s Doctor Who series.

The new elevator (left) is the most visible change to improve disabled access to the gallery. Prior to the renovation work, access was only ‘on request’ through staff using a wooden ramp to allow wheelchair access. The entire Queen Street front of the building is reworked with sloping access in addition to the original steps. Whilst a lift was previously available within the gallery, it was only large enough for two people; when used for a wheelchair, it was so cramped that any disabled person’s helper had to go up or down separately from them.

The gallery expects that the renovation work will see visitor numbers double from before the 2009 closure to around 300,000 each year. As with many of Edinburgh’s museums and galleries, access is free to the public.

The expected significant increase in numbers has seen them working closely with the National Museum of Scotland, which was itself reopened earlier this year after extensive refurbishment work; improved access for wheelchair users also makes it far easier for mothers with baby buggies to access the gallery – prompting more thought on issues as seemingly small as nappy-changing – as Patricia Convery, the gallery’s Head of Press, told Wikinews, a great deal of thought went into the practicalities of increased visitor numbers, and what is needed to ensure as many visitors as possible have a good experience at the gallery.

Press access to the gallery on Monday was from around 11:30am, with refreshments and an opportunity to catch some of the staff in the Grand Hall before a brief welcoming introduction to the refurbished gallery given by John Leighton, director of the National Galleries of Scotland. Centre-stage in the Grand Hall is a statue of Robert Burns built with funds raised from around the British Empire and intended for his memorial situated on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill.

The ambulatories surrounding the Grand Hall give the space a cathedral-like feel, with numerous busts – predominantly of Scottish figures – looking in on the tiled floor. The east corner holds a plaque commemorating the gallery’s reopening, next to a far more ornate memorial to John Ritchie Findlay, who not only funded and commissioned the building’s construction, but masterminded all aspects of the then-new home for the national collection.

Split into two groups, members of the press toured with gallery Director James Holloway, and Nicola Kalinsky, Deputy Director. Wikinews’ McNeil joined Kalinsky’s group, first visiting The Contemporary Scotland Gallery. This ground-floor gallery currently houses two exhibits, first being the Hot Scots display of photographic portraits of well-known Scottish figures from film, television, and music. Centre-stage in this exhibit is the newly-acquired Albert Watson portrait of Sir Sean Connery. James McAvoy, Armando Iannucci, playwright John Byrne, and Dr Who actress Karen Gillan also feature in the 18-photograph display.

The second exhibit in the Contemporary gallery, flanked by the new educational facilities, is the Missing exhibit. This is a video installation by Graham Fagen, and deals with the issue of missing persons. The installation was first shown during the National Theatre of Scotland’s staging of Andrew O’Hagan’s play, The Missing. Amongst the images displayed in Fagen’s video exhibit are clips from the deprived Sighthill and Wester-Hailes areas of Edinburgh, including footage of empty play-areas and footbridges across larger roads that sub-divide the areas.

With the only other facilities on the ground floor being the education suite, reception/information desk, cafe and the gallery’s shop, Wikinews’ McNeil proceeded with the rest of Kalinsky’s tour group to the top floor of the gallery, all easily fitting into the large glass hydraulic elevator.

The top (2nd) floor of the building is now divided into ten galleries, with the larger spaces having had lowered, false ceilings removed, and adjustable ceiling blinds installed to allow a degree of control over the amount of natural light let in. The architects and building contractors responsible for the renovation work were required, for one side of the building, to recreate previously-removed skylights by duplicating those they refurbished on the other. Kalinsky, at one point, highlighted a constructed-from-scratch new sandstone door frame; indistinguishable from the building’s original fittings, she remarked that the building workers had taken “a real interest” in the vision for the gallery.

The tour group were first shown the Citizens of the World gallery, currently hosting an 18th century Enlightenment-themed display which focuses on the works of David Hume and Allan Ramsay. Alongside the most significant 18th century items from the National Portrait Gallery’s collection, are some of the 133 new loans for the opening displays. For previous visitors to the gallery, one other notable change is underfoot; previously carpeted, the original parquet floors of the museum have been polished and varnished, and there is little to indicate it is over 120 years since the flooring was originally laid.

Throughout many of the upper-floor displays, the gallery has placed more light-sensitive works in wall-mounted cabinets and pull-out drawers. Akin to rummaging through the drawers and cupboards of a strange house, a wealth of items – many previously never displayed – are now accessible by the public. Commenting on the larger, featured oils, Deputy Director Kalinsky stressed that centuries-old portraits displayed in the naturally-lit upper exhibitions had not been restored for the opening; focus groups touring the gallery during the renovation had queried this, and the visibly bright colours are actually the consequence of displaying the works in natural light, not costly and risky restoration of the paintings.

There are four other large galleries on the top floor. Reformation to Revolution is an exhibition covering the transition from an absolute Catholic monarchy through to the 1688 revolution. Items on-display include some of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery’s most famous items – including Mary Queen of Scots and The Execution of Charles I. The portrait-based depiction of this historical age is complemented with prints, medals, and miniatures from the period.

Imagining Power is a Jacobite-themed exhibition, one which looks at the sometime-romanticised Stuart dynasty. The Gallery owns the most extensive collection of such material in the world; the portraiture that includes Flora MacDonald and Prince Charles Edward Stuart is complemented by glassware from the period which is on-loan from the Drambuie Liqueur Company which Kalinsky remarked upon as the only way Scots from the period could celebrate the deposed monarchy – toasting The King over the Water in appropriately engraved glasses.

On the other side of the upper floor, the two main naturally-lit exhibitions are The Age of Improvement, and Playing for Scotland. The first of these looks at societal changes through the 18th and 19th centuries, including Nasmyth’s 1787 portrait of the young Robert Burns and – well-known to past visitors to the portrait gallery – Raeburn’s 1822 depiction of Sir Walter Scott. These are complemented with some of the National Gallery’s collection of landscapes and earliest scenes from Scottish industry.

Playing for Scotland takes a look at the development of modern sports in the 19th century; migration from countryside to cities dramatically increased participation in sporting activities, and standardised rules were laid down for many modern sports. This exhibition covers Scotland’s four national sports – curling, shinty, golf, and bowls – and includes some interesting photographic images, such as those of early strong-men, which show how more leisure time increased people’s involvement in sporting activities.

Next to the Reformation to Revolution gallery is A Survey of Scotland. Largely composed of works on-loan from the National Library of Scotland, this showcase of John Slezer’s work which led to the 1693 publication of Theatrum Scotiae also includes some of the important early landscape paintings in the national collection.

The work of Scotland’s first portrait painter, the Aberdeen-born George Jamesone, takes up the other of the smaller exhibits on the east side of the refurbished building. As the first-ever dedicated display of Jamesone’s work, his imaginary heroic portraits of Robert the Bruce and Sir William Wallace are included.

On the west side of the building, the two smaller galleries currently house the Close Encounters and Out of the Shadow exhibits. Close Encounters is an extensive collection of the Glasgow slums photographic work of Thomas Annan. Few people are visible in the black and white images of the slums, making what were squalid conditions appear more romantic than the actual conditions of living in them.

The Out of the Shadow exhibit takes a look at the role of women in 19th century Scotland, showing them moving forward and becoming more recognisable individuals. The exceptions to the rules of the time, known for their work as writers and artists, as-opposed to the perceived role of primary duties as wives and mothers, are showcased. Previously constrained to the domestic sphere and only featuring in portraits alongside men, those on-display are some of the people who laid the groundwork for the Suffrage movement.

The first floor of the newly-reopened building has four exhibits on one side, with the library and photographic gallery on the other. The wood-lined library was moved, in its entirety, from elsewhere in the building and is divided into two parts. In the main public part, the original table from the Society of Antiquaries sits centred and surrounded by glass-fronted cabinets of reference books. Visible, but closed to public access, is the research area. Apart from a slight smell of wood glue, there was little to indicate to the tour group that the entire room had been moved from elsewhere in the building.

The War at Sea exhibit, a collaboration with the Imperial War Museum, showcases the work of official war artist John Lavery. His paintings are on-display, complemented by photographs of the women who worked in British factories throughout the First World War. Just visible from the windows of this gallery is the Firth of Forth where much of the naval action in the war took place. Situated in the corner of the room is a remote-controlled ‘periscope’ which allows visitors a clearer view of the Forth as-seen from the roof of the building.

Sir Patrick Geddes, best-known for his work on urban planning, is cited as one of the key influencers of the Scottish Renaissance Movement which serves as a starting point for The Modern Scot exhibit. A new look at the visual aspects of the movement, and a renewal of Scottish Nationalist culture that began between the two World Wars, continuing into the late 20th century, sees works by William McCance, William Johnstone, and notable modernists on display.

Migration Stories is a mainly photographic exhibit, prominently featuring family portraits from the country’s 30,000-strong Pakistani community, and exploring migration into and out of Scotland. The gallery’s intent is to change the exhibit over time, taking a look at a range of aspects of Scottish identity and the influence on that from migration. In addition to the striking portraits of notable Scots-Pakistani family groups, Fragments of Love – by Pakistani-born filmmaker Sana Bilgrami – and Isabella T. McNair’s visual narration of a Scottish teacher in Lahore are currently on-display.

The adjacent Pioneers of Science exhibit has Ken Currie’s 2002 Three Oncologists as its most dramatic item. Focussing on Scotland’s reputation as a centre of scientific innovation, the model for James Clerk Maxwell’s statue in the city’s George Street sits alongside photographs from the Roslin Institute and a death mask of Dolly the sheep. Deputy Director Kalinsky, commented that Dolly had been an incredibly spoilt animal, often given sweets, and this was evident from her teeth when the death mask was taken.

Now open daily from 10am to 5pm, and with more of their collection visible than ever before, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery will change some of the smaller current exhibits after 12 to 18 months on display. The ground-floor information desk has available five mini-guides, or ‘trails’, which are thematic guides to specific display items. These are: The Secret Nature trail, The Catwalk Collection trail, The Situations Vacant trail, The Best Wee Nation & The World trail, and The Fur Coat an’ Nae Knickers Trail.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

U.S. authorities have charged Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab with trying to blow up a plane on its descent into the city of Detroit, Michigan on Friday. The man, who comes from a prominent Nigerian family, was read the charges in a hospital Saturday, where he is being treated for burns.

The charges were read by United States District Judge Paul Borman while Abdulmutallab was being held at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Abdulmutallab was asked if he understood the charges against him, and he answered in English that he did. Witnesses reported he was in a wheelchair with a blanket over his lap.

The U.S. government accuses the Nigerian national of bringing an explosive device onto Friday’s Northwest Airlines Flight 253 plane from Amsterdam in the Netherlands. A preliminary analysis by federal authorities indicates he used a syringe to detonate a highly explosive substance, identified as PETN. Abdulmutallab said he got the explosives in Yemen from an Al Qaeda bomb maker who sewed the device into his underwear.

Passengers have told investigators the man went into the bathroom for 20 minutes before landing and complained about stomach problems before pulling a blanket on himself.

Just as the plane was getting ready to land, they heard a pop, smelled smoke and then saw the man on fire. A Dutch passenger, Jasper Schuringa, jumped on the Nigerian to subdue him, and a fire extinguisher was used to put out the fire.

The House Committee on Homeland Security chairman, Bennie Thompson, said it was a very close call. “We’re just fortunate nothing happened. This was a serious situation,” he said. Thompson said Congress will look into the matter soon. “As soon as we reconvene from the holiday recess, we will start looking into the circumstances around the Northwest flight incident.”

Nigeria’s acting ambassador to the United States, Babagana Wakil, immediately issued a statement, which he read to the Voice of America over the phone. “Expectedly, the embassy is already in contact with relevant U.S. authorities over the incident to facilitate any preliminary investigations to get to the bottom of this unfortunate development. Officers from the embassy have already flown to Michigan to gain consular access to the individual under investigation, and to offer the mission’s cooperation to federal and local authorities,” he said.

The suspect’s family members in Nigeria said they were shocked. The suspect’s father, an accountant and businessman, was previously a very well known banker in Africa’s most populous nation. Friends and family said Adbulmutallab had studied in Togo and London, and that he had recently made several trips to Yemen. His father had, apparently, made concerns with his son’s extremist connections known to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria.

Adbulmutallab told the FBI he met with a radical Yemeni cleric he corresponded with online. The cleric is not believed to be Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Imam connected to Major Nidal Malik Hasan who carried out the Fort Hood shooting last month.

Friday, the White House said it believed it was an attempted act of terrorism. U.S. media reports say the suspect told interrogators he had affiliations with Al Qaeda.

The charges that were read against him Saturday carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

Meanwhile, security screening measures have upgraded in the wake of the foiled attack, including only allowing one carry-on bag for international passengers, banning anyone from moving around the airplane during the last hour of the flight and additional “unpredictable” measures that will vary from airport to airport.

Monday, December 26, 2005

In Russia’s second largest city, St. Petersburg, four gas attacks left more than 70 people ill. Devices with wires, timers, and glass vials of a gas determined on scene to be methyl mercaptan were found in outlets of Makisdom, a home improvement chain store. The chemical is both naturally occurring and manufactured and is used as an oderant for detection of propane or natural gas leaks.

Store officials have said that they had received threats that sales would be disrupted before New Year’s. Russians traditionally give gifts on the holiday. Police officials said they believed a commercial dispute or a prank not terrorism.

The local emergency hospital was overflowed from the influx of ill people from the attacks. Valentina Matviyenko, Governer of St. Petersburg, said that those who sought medical help were not suffering any further medical problems.

A custodian at one of the stores found the devices and alerted police. The devices were found at another store with their vials broken. The devices in the two other stores were carried outside by employees and covered with buckets. The police explosives experts defused them.

• Interfax. “Gas Attack in Russian Store Poisons Dozens of Shoppers, Workers” — Bloomberg, December 26, 2005

• “Russia gas attack sickens scores; commercial dispute suspected” — Jerusalem Post, December 26, 2005

• Irina Titova (ap). “Gas Attack at Russia Store Sickens Dozens” — Washington Post, December 26, 2005

Thursday, November 8, 2007

What you are about to read is an American life as lived by renowned author Edmund White. His life has been a crossroads, the fulcrum of high-brow Classicism and low-brow Brett Easton Ellisism. It is not for the faint. He has been the toast of the literary elite in New York, London and Paris, befriending artistic luminaries such as Salman Rushdie and Sir Ian McKellen while writing about a family where he was jealous his sister was having sex with his father as he fought off his mother’s amorous pursuit.

The fact is, Edmund White exists. His life exists. To the casual reader, they may find it disquieting that someone like his father existed in 1950’s America and that White’s work is the progeny of his intimate effort to understand his own experience.

Wikinews reporter David Shankbone understood that an interview with Edmund White, who is professor of creative writing at Princeton University, who wrote the seminal biography of Jean Genet, and who no longer can keep track of how many sex partners he has encountered, meant nothing would be off limits. Nothing was. Late in the interview they were joined by his partner Michael Caroll, who discussed White’s enduring feud with influential writer and activist Larry Kramer.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Matthew Higa, 23, has been arrested in connection with the death of a 23-month-old boy. Higa is alleged to have thrown the child from a pedestrian overpass into oncoming traffic on Honolulu’s H-1 Freeway.

The local coroner’s office noted that the child died on impact after falling 30 feet (9 meters) from the overpass. This occurred during Thursday’s lunch rush hour in the heart of downtown. Upon impact, several cars struck the child, which caused traffic to grind to a halt.

The toddler, Cyrus Nainoa Tupa?i Belt, was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:07 p.m. (2207 UTC), approximately 27 minutes after being allegedly being ejected from the overpass by Higa. The portion of H-1 was closed for approximately five hours with traffic diverted to side streets. The freeway was reopened in time for the evening commute.

At first the relationship between Higa and the child was unclear, but later reports stated that Higa lived adjacent to him and had babysat him on previous occasions. The boy’s mother was out of town at the time of his death, but it was revealed that the child was supposed to be in the custody of his father and not with Higa.

Higa graduated from Roosevelt High School in 2003. In the summer of 2004 Higa was involved in an incident where police reports indicate a three-car race resulted in the death of a friend. Higa has since had a criminal history, with more than a dozen arrests but no convictions, and reports from neighbors of erratic behavior.

Queen’s Medical Center, which houses a psychiatric ward in Honolulu, noted that he was a patient there as recently as December 11, 2007. When arrested, Higa was wearing hospital scrubs, which were not immediately conducive to whether Higa was a patient in Queen’s psychiatric wing in the last couple of days. A representative of Queen’s declined to comment on whether Higa was admitted in the last week.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Australian Treasurer Peter Costello said today that he was “a lot of fun” while he was outlining his plans for Australia as a possible future Prime Minister.

During an interview with ABC Radio, Mr Costello was asked to say something about himself that the public didn’t know. Mr Costello’s replied “That I’m a lot of fun – a lot of fun and good company.”

Costello, who is considered current Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s likely successor when he retires, said he was not expecting an easy rise to the Prime Ministership, admitting that the forthcoming federal election would be difficult.

The treasurer said “If you read polls, then (Kevin) Rudd is in front and he’s already carrying on as if he’s got the election in the bag,”

“I would say an election is not over until all of the votes have been counted on the polling day, and I think it will be a hard-fought election.”

Mr Costello also outlined his vision for Australia should he become Prime Minister in the future centering his platform upon education and water.

“I think we need first, a first-class technical school system in this country, training people for trades,” Mr Costello said.

“I think we need improved standards of literacy in our primary and secondary schools and I think we need better facilities at the tertiary level.”

The treasurer admitted that education was one of his key priorities as he had been a university tutor and had a father who was a teacher. Speaking of his father, Costello said “I watched him influence generations of students,”

“I know the difference that a good school teacher makes in a person’s life and I believe in the importance of education.”

Mr Costello also said that Australia would need to carefully manage its water resources for the future.

“We have to manage our water better, we have to invest in water better, we have to harness water better, we have to price water better,” he said.

“I think we really do have a water crisis in this country and it’s something that we’re going to have to deal with in order to keep our country growing and our lifestyle up in the decades which lie ahead.” Mr Costello criticised state governments for failing to invest in water infrastructure and predicted desalination plants would have a major role to play in securing the nation’s water supply.

“There has not been enough investment in dams, there has not been enough investment in pipes, in irrigation canals and I think we’re going to have to look very, very carefully at desalination plants for our major capital cities,” said the Australian Treasurer.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Odense Squash Club (OSC) won the Danish team club championship in squash. During the weekend of April 26 and 27, the final four of the Danish championship were played at OSC home stadium, Squash Center Danmark, due to OSC winning the league system this season. OSC beat Herlev/Hjorten Squash (Herlev) 6-1 in the final.

OSC was the favourite to take the gold this weekend, as they had already won league play with a comfortable lead over København Squash Klub (KSK), and therefore had home court and could pick their opponent in the first semi-final. OSC chose to play Åbyhøj Squash Klub (ÅSK) in the first semi final, and beat them with ease 6-1, only loosing the women’s second to Ditte Nielsen (ÅSK).

During the other semi, the favoured professionals from KSK, ran in to serious problems, as injured star player Alex Stait was not able to play for KSK giving the young Herlev team a chance in this semi. After 5 matches and down by two matches, Mikkel Kragholm (Herlev) and Thomas Pilak (Herlev) became double match winners when they each beat their opponents by 3-0 and 3-1, winning the match 4-3 for Herlev.

The final was, however, dominated by OSC, and Herlev wasn’t ever in the match. Only Danish individual champion Morten Sørensen was able to win for Herlev. Herlev lost the rest of the matches. OSC’s players proved to be to strong for last years bronze winners from Herlev. OSC won the Danish championship 6-1 in the final at Squash Center Danmark in Odense.